Martin was a bit nervous to take his eye off of Baled, but knew Sophia was right.. not only would he be safer, everyone else would be too, that was unlikely to be all the darkness that was to come out in the upcoming days... not enough for another daemon, but it might have been easier to deal with a daemon you can cut in half over for example a group of spiked urchins that are very excited to get in your ears... or all the food rotting and coalescing into a black mud...

The heated sword was cooling off, so by the time the other daemons had been slain it was cooled to normal temperature. the wards were weakened, but still around.

Once it came time to shoot the flare, Martin got a bit playful, and after it was shot, played with it's trail, making it into a sort of firework, it was very pretty and bright, it would have even of had colors, except that martin had used a heat wave cloak (an inefficient one, but if pushed can act as a mediocre cloak, looks like a ripple in the sky) over the blast to make sure it was not intercepted by enemy eyes, their friends could still see it, nobody else.

Once everyone regrouped Martin joined Baled, who had had a meal, and was looking still ill, but able to walk on his own, though he'd need rest before the others would.
Baled didn't talk much but answered if spoken to, he thanked everyone for helping him out, but still was a bit down, that's what happens when your possessed by dark magic, turned to stone, and then throw up four daemons... 'he'll be fine soon' martin hoped

(Still not a sword, but a lance. Like a stabbing pole. Fits the character design better than a sword.)

While Aydin, Martin, and Denning fought off the remaining, already weakened daemons, Sophia, Schmidt, and Baled hunkered down a couple hundred meters away from the fight.

Some might think that they should have stayed and helped to fight, but Sophia had seen that Baled was the source of the daemons. Or at least they entered this world through his body.
She grabbed the boy and moved him somewhere, where the two already injured Vanguards wouldn't have been put in more danger. As far as she was concerned, Sophia and Schmidt would be more than capable to take out any more daemons that would emerge.
Nothing of the sort happened though. They were safe, for the moment at least.

Their departure from the group had a different benefit though. An unforeseen one, but a greatly appreciated one. Sophia noticed tracks.
Not normal tracks, too, but rather those of Jacob, heading in a different direction than they were heading before and build up their camp. She marked the spot as good as she could (mostly by climbing trees and tying red shreds of fabric to the branches, and had asked Schmidt to keep an eye on Baled.

It wasn't before long that they saw the all-clear signal flare and Sophia fired her flare in response to signal that they were alright and on their way back to base.

They regrouped, ate a meal to recover, exchanged a quick few words about how everyone was doing.
Denning seemed to have been hit the worst, but he claimed that he took worse and that he'll manage. Aydin was already cleaning his wound and was about to close it with his burning hand.
Even though beat up and tired, they were going to live to see the next fight.

As soon as everyone was done eating Sophia broke the news to everyone about how they were walking the wrong way and where she saw the tracks. She didn't like to say it, but there wasn't a lot of time to rest now. They had to get moving as quickly as possible to have a chance of catching up with the Wild One.

Last edited by Greyson on Wed May 09, 2018 10:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

(my bad, i can't seem to get it stuck in my head, i am by no means attempting to redo your character's design, it is just that i can't seem to remember. i will drill all the characters equipments, traits and such into my head some more, please correct me if i make further mistakes (i will start proofreading if i have time))

Martin agreed, the sun was rising now, so they had a whole day ahead of them to move, even without much sleep... they needed to progress.

They walked for a while, until evening, two hours afternoon to be precise. Baled began walking on his own, he had not been rushed by any means, he seemed more glum than normal, and didn't say anything about all that had been going on lately.

Three hours later, just before dinner, Baled stopped in his tracks, and wavered, he knelt down, and pulled out a large tome, filled with notes of all kinds, some from his father, and some from him. Baled scribbled something in the book, and moved around his fingers a little, as if writing down something in his head.

Next, he did something bizarre, and seemingly bad, he began to tear out every note in the book quickly before there were none left, he lit a spark off his index finger and they were incinerated within moments. He closed the book, dust bouncing out of it, he breathed it in with some obvious pleasure, and closed his eyes tight, moving his finger around a bit harder than before. He finished after a minute or two, and caught up with the group, Martin had been watching him from a distance, halfway between the group and his friend.

When he caught up to Martin they hurried back to the group while Martin tried to ask whatever he had been doing was, "It's familial" Baled told him, whenever he said that, it meant personal, and likely related to his father. But he was smirking hard now, and broke, he told Martin what he had done in a rush of words, obviously proud:
"Well, you see that book, which i deeply enjoy has been getting filled and filled with notes, it was taking up a quarter of the weight in my pack! So to solve this, I set up a mental channel for all the notes to be stored and then burned the notes with a hungry flame, just a spark though, a lick could take down the little woods over to the east in hours." Baled said between laughs at his cleverness, "Next, I isolated that flame, weakening it, I choked the information out of it, and swept it over to my channel, I did a bit of quick organizing, and ta-da! I can review my scholarly notes whenever I please! And I can read the book simultaneously!" he said, almost done, "Not to mention my dad can see them too, as could my kin, if i give them access to it, or the book" he said, "That was my first time!" he squeaked a bit loudly, attracting a bit more stares from the group they had caught up to than would be comfortable for a normal person, he kept going "It's super exciting because mental channels are a quite advanced enchantment, and i figured it out!" he said gleefuly, prancing around not unfairly, "i feel great!" he exclaimed.

Martin was happy that Baled was back, "Good, that means you can hold the stuff I've been holding for you" he said, breaking Baled's peace

"Oh... well okay, I guess my legs do work now" he said, "Yeah, they do " Martin replied, with a smile, "welcome back, buddy"

((So I've been waiting a bit for Dudeman to return, but he still seems to be really busy. I hope life isn't too hard on him currently. Let's keep the ball rolling then. I've been thinking about establishing a sub-plot for now, so we have a goal to accomplish until Dudeman returns.))

Aydin was happy to see Baled back on his feet and he seemed to be quite cheerful for now. It was a good thing, considering the condition he was in not to long ago.
The group was marching onward for now, following the trail that Sophia had found.

A couple hours passed until the trail went cold.

Having lost the possibility of tracking Jacob for now, the group decided that, for now, a defendable base camp would be the wisest course of action.
More hours passed in which Aydin and Denning proceeded to chop down trees, Sophia marked the borders of the soon to be base camp, and Schmidt proceeded to clear said area of branches, stone and the like.

Well aware that they had to work throughout the night, the group used the chopped trees to build wooden wall, roughly 3 meters in height with a single wooden gate.
It might not have been the most beautiful defensive structure, but it was defensible nonetheless.
A trait very important, given the fact that Sophia found traces of monsters roaming the area. It seemed like this area wasn't as deserted as the area closer to Stalwart.

At the first light of dawn, the forward operating base was pretty much established. It would serve as an important Hub while trying to find Jacobs trail. Wherever he ran off to, it was crucial that they would find him.
Aydin just hoped that he was still alive, but he figured that since Jacob grew up out here, he was more likely to survive all this than anyone else in this group.

Having established a base of operations, the group should now be able to split up during the day to find any information on how to proceed next.
But what the future may bring was yet a mystery.

Baled set up his normal nightly routine to defend the base, he marked the sentinels on the corners, and set the fire in the center, he also cast a dimming shield around it as so monsters would not be able to locate it, even those with good eyes

Once everyone settled, Baled took the first shift, and offered to take all of them, but Martin told him not to get ahead of himself. Baled settled for just one, and Martin would take the second with him to make sure he was fine, then Baled would have to sleep.

The reason for Baled's energy and enthusiasm was partially due to his guilt of oversleeping for a few days while made of stone, but also partially selfish, he wanted to enhance his magic (well, not entirely selfish, any magic he learned would indirectly help his group at some point or another). Baled studied the moon that night, while he more importantly learned of his new "pseudodimension" and organized it a bit nicer. The moon was glorious, greater than it ever was inside Stalwart, however that glory came with a danger, a tint of evil, moreover a few shades too many of evil. The moon seemed to be in control, or at least a light grasp of whoever had been tugging with it.

There were many, many, many legends of the Moon... Legends say at times there were up to thirty in the sky, Baled believed it, he could always tell fact from fiction, and to a lesser extent, truth from lies. He was an avid reader, and could appreciate every word in a page, while maintaining a reading speed of 1200 or 1400 wpm with a comprehension in the mid to high 90%s

Baled talked little to Martin on the second shift, who eventually quit prodding, he busied himself watching the fire, and trying to get a vision, the fire often gave great forge mages visions, but not always... he had obtained one from the flames before, but that was with his long-dead great aunt who had been a seer as well as a very wise woman.

Baled loved stories, he loved learning of the past through tales that were so very differently written from his own books of science. Science had always had a practical method of writing, but Magic scholars, they had true flavor and lore hidden beyond the wall of confusion and abstractness in their books. Baled would be able to learn more of the moon, but it began to hurt his eyes and give him a headache, he would rest for now. He headed off to bed, and cast a blessing over himself, protecting the moon's ambient influence against him, he did a lesser ones to the others who had not stared, but were sleeping in it's basking glow.

He offered one to Martin who declined, he would not glance away from the fire.

Baled dreams of near-omniworthless things, that are pleasant and, as normal, subtly influenced, as all dreams are ~~~